I've been re-watching Person of Interest intermittently over the summer and also intended to post about the show's surprising prescience. Much as I love the show, it could use a fan edit to cut out the acres of NCIS-style case-of-the-week that plagues the first two seasons, to bring it into a Mr.Robot-style mini-series.

So yes, you really do have to slog through nearly 50 templated 'cases' before the backstory really sets in, and Michael Emerson becomes both the chilling and warm heart of the show.

Like others here, I have been surprised how well it holds up, with several of the episodes dealing with topics that are now current but were pretty much absurd at time of transmission.